It’s been a couple years, but I’ll be doing a lot more with this blog (just like the good ‘ol days).

What happened? Quite simply, life (with a little bit of cyber squatting on this domain).

I had a lot to do personally with family and such, so I was off for a few months to get that taken care of as my main priority. Then, I didn’t realize the domain was up and some company bought the domain and put ads on it. The original blog had a LOT of traffic and must have been an attractive purchase for them. I tried to get the domain back. There was A TON of paperwork to deal with at ICANN and I decided, I’ll let it lapse.

Eventually, it did. Now, I have the domain back and I’ll be doing a lot more to it just like I used to. Expect a post often on things I find online. Various sites with good content, homebrew links and of course – tons of Youtube videos! There’s just so much out there.

I’m back, and I plan to play a lot of radio and share the neat things I find.

I’m a huge fan of the platform. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the projects I think are just too simple and can be done on a PIC for a lot less cash. That being said, there are some REALLY neat Arduino projects out there and I’ll be Highlighting more ham related projects here in the future.

Just in case you’re really not sure, here’s a snip from the Wikipedia entry on Arduino:

Arduino is a popular open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR processor and on-board input/output support. The software consists of a standard programming language compiler and the boot loader that runs on the board.

Arduino hardware is programmed using a Wiring-based language (syntax and libraries), similar to C++ with some slight simplifications and modifications, and a Processing-based integrated development environment.

The Geek Group is a hacker/makerspace in Michigan that does a lot of really neat things (and they have one hell of a machine shop as well!). In this video, they give a good basic introduction to what Arduino is, what sets it apart from a PIC and how you can get started programming and tinkering with Arduino.

If you know of any great ham radio related Arduino projects, post them in the comments and share! I may add them in a future post.

I’ve mentioned similar courses in the past, but here’s a new twist….. you’re not just watching videos of lectures, you can actually participate.

Here is a description of the purpose of the MITx program, from MIT:

“MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses for free to a virtual community of learners around the world. It will also enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences.The first MITx course, 6.002x (Circuits and Electronics), will be launched in an experimental prototype form.

Watch this space for further upcoming courses, which will become available in Fall 2012.”

The Circuits and Electronics course has already started. Though I can’t participate at this time, I did notice I could still click on the link and enroll.

If you have the time, check it out. Maybe come back and give us some feedback on the experience. The link to the course is: